Arts & Entertainment

Ryan O'Connor talks (and listens) to former I Mother Earth front man Edwin, about his fans, his solo career, and another spin around the sun and ‘no,’ he would not

tell us his last name.

Ryan O’Connor: On

your album, there is a

great deal of versatil- ity among the songs, ranging from “Shot- gun,” “Hang Ten,” and “Another Drink.” Is this to show your diversity in tastes, or maybe to show yourself as a

solo artist?

Edwin: It’s both , to show myself as a solo artist and my versatil- ity. But it really wasn’t to show anybody anything, it was kind of to keep me interested [laughs]. I tend to shy away from al- bums that sound the exact same all the way through, where it sounds like one song copied over eight or nine times. I can’t stand that! I really like albums with versatility, diversity and different styles — as long as they fit into the big picture. You got to make it all work together. I kind of tried to stretch the

edited by ryan o'connor

degrees from one end of the scale to the other.I have so many different tastes in music, and so many different influences that I can’t just do one style. It

helps the dynam-

ics of the records, and it also helps the live show.

RO: Before you were singing material that you didn’t write, right?

E: Yes

RO: On the new album you have credits on all the

songs. How does this affect the perform-

ance and recording of the songs?

E: First off all, the stuff that I was doing before, I did write some of, or a little bit of. It wasn’t com- pletely not mine.

So I did always sing like it was my pen to paper or my notes put together. I sang with that passion. Now, it’s not like an ego thing like “Oh, I wrote it so I’m going to sing it better,” it’s just more like you kind of had an over- view of how you wanted a song to sound in the begin- ning, and so you try and keep it as close to

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that as possible unless you stumble across an idea that elevates it to another level. I guess live it’s kinda cool, because I am singing words I wrote and

part

of

me, so it’s easier to trans-

late them live. I

think that would be the big-

gest

dif.

ference.

RO: What kind of vibe did you get off your new album when you released it and it got to the fans?

E: It was well re- ceived by the fans, but I was going through a bunch of emotions. I was nervous, excited,

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scared, full of love and hate — all at the same time. Basically, it was well received so I felt really great about it.

That’s why I make music, I want peo- ple

to

en- joy it. I'm not 6.8 a vengeance, I just want to make music people want to sing along to, and put on a live show where people walk away going “Hey man, I got my moneys

~'

there with

worth.”

RO: When I heard

"you were going solo,

I thought of the history of Canadian rock, with all the lead singers that have left their popular groups, and never hearing from them again. But when your album came out, it was well received and sounds really nice. “Hang Ten” is up on the top of the charts right now. What do you think the difference between yourself and all the artists that went solo nd haven’t been heard

of since?

Rese don’t even know how to answer that. I don’t know what they did, or how they went about things. I don’t know where their head-space was, so I can’t say what they did differently. They might have done everything the exact same as I did, only the luck of the draw so far has been in my favour. I don’t know. I do know that I’m very pas- sionate about what I do. It’s my favorite thing in the world, so I do get up every day looking forward

- certain level, like I’m

to being able to make music in one facet or another. I always try to keep the quality control up toa

my own “cheese-o- meter,” so if some- _ thing’s cheesy or cliche I really try to spot it and eliminate it. I think that if you always put out quality stuff, the best you can do, it pays off, and people will appreciate it and get into it. If you just do things half-assed, that’s probably the reaction you'll get from people. So other than that, I don’t know what to say about it. I just do what I do.

RO: How do you describe your live show?

E: Taking the album to the next level is how I would describe it. Good energy on stage, great players, we have all the vibe and the mood of the album but times it by three or four because it is live and you do have the interaction of the audience, and you do have the live band there.with you, so the energy level, the whole intensity level jumps up a few notches. That’s the best way I can de- scribe it.